


Long Away

by bronweathanharthad



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 21:17:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bronweathanharthad/pseuds/bronweathanharthad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by Queen's "Long Away," this FanFiction contains a few vignettes of Frodo's life after he returns to the Shire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Away

_For every star in heaven, there’s a sad soul today._

    Frodo felt joy for his friends, of course. Sam had married Rosie Cotton, a lass whom he loved with everything he had. Pippin had begun a promising relationship with Diamond of Long Cleeve, and Merry enjoyed a prosperous career. He knew he should have been grateful for the Shire remaining almost completely unchanged, but instead he felt stuck in time while everyone moved on.

    When the four hobbits first returned, Frodo was met with some acknowledgement. “Mr. Frodo! We thought you were dead!” was a common greeting. Frodo always replied with a shy smile and an apology for his sudden extended leave, but he always had the bitter thought of “I may not be dead, but I’d hardly call myself living.”

    Whatever positivity that was directed his way would not last, however. Vendors were concerned when they noticed his breathless speech, and many asked if he had the strength to carry the purchased goods back to his house. When he went into the Ivy Bush for a drink, the place would go silent, and many patrons would stare. Many children pointed at him and told their parents that he looked sick. “Pay him no mind,” the parents said. “He has a sick mind; he can’t be helped.”

    Of course Frodo had a sick mind. He had a sick mind, a wounded mind, and a wounded body. They needn’t gossip about him and act perfectly innocent as soon as they saw him. Yet he was grateful for their apathy. He didn’t know what he would have done or said if someone had asked him about his adventure. He couldn’t talk about it to Sam, Merry, or Pippin. He couldn’t even talk about it to himself.

    He wrote in the Red Book of Westmarch out of obligation, but that was after he wrote several drafts. He had to make sure he could complete a passage without reliving the event. He could write no more than two sentences about his shoulder before he saw the Witch-King standing before him. If he wrote about the Ring’s increasing weight, he felt it around his neck. As for Mordor, it couldn’t be done. The feeling of Sauron’s presence would assault him after he wrote as little as one word.

   

_Wake up in the morning with a good face_.

    Frodo’s head swam. The room spun wildly when he opened his eyes. When he lifted his head, he felt on the verge of fainting. His eyelids felt heavy with exhaustion, but he felt too ill to fall back to sleep, so he forced himself to stumble out of bed.

    The back of his neck throbbed, and a feverish delirium controlled his every action. Sometimes his bedroom looked hazy, and objects seemed to disappear from sight if he looked at them for a long enough time. Even though heat radiated through his body, he felt himself shivering as he changed clothes. He felt nauseated, but the tiredness was the strongest sensation.

    He did not understand. He felt relatively fine yesterday. None of the townsfolk seemed ill, so why did he have such a sudden onset of symptoms?

    He tottered to the couch near the front door and lay there in case any visitors came. The weariness grew overpowering, and shortly before falling asleep, he found himself relieved that Sam wasn’t here.

    _Frodo was running. He never looked back to see from what he was running, and he saw very little due to the darkness. A distant light was the only available light, and it seemed to draw closer as he ran. It was only a few feet away. He was close to freedom; he knew it. Then he felt a stabbing pain in the back of his neck and everything faded._

    He woke up crying out and instinctively grabbed the back of his neck as the piercing pain carried into reality. The room was a giant blur, and he could no longer feel the couch. He felt as if some substance had encased and smothered him. He grew light-headed as his breaths grew ragged, and once again he slipped out of consciousness.

    _He walked as if an ever-growing stone was around his neck, and he tripped over unseen bumps in the ground. His skin felt burned with fire, but that burning could not thaw his frozen bones. He shivered from his own sweat._

_But above all, he was aware of the ever-piercing Eye. “Come to me,” a voice beckoned. “Come to me. Free yourself of this torment.” But he knew that his tormenter was the one beckoning to him, and every time he resisted, he felt a part of his mind decay into nothingness. Soon he could no longer distinguish between reality and fantasy. He longed to scream, but his consciousness was trapped in the darkness alongside his dead memories._

    He felt more confused than ever when he broke from his trance. He still felt the Ring and Sauron’s gaze and had no sense of where he was. He grabbed for the chain around his neck and searched frantically for the Ring. When he found a gem instead, he remembered where he was, and the disorientation left him, though the despair lingered. What kind of future was this? How could he expect to live a long life when his days were manageable at best? Would he ever leave Middle-earth, or was he condemned to wither every day until nothing was left?

    “It is gone for ever,” he said to no one in particular, “and now all is dark and empty.”

 

_For all the prayers in heaven, so much of life’s this way._

    Autumn came early to the Shire this year. The season had officially started only ten days ago, and already most of the trees had lost their leaves. In an innocent past age, this was Frodo’s favorite time of the year. He still saw the beauty, but now he longed for the warmth of spring. The cold in his shoulder was bad enough in the summer, and it grew worse once the weather chilled.

    It was October the fourth, and Frodo, experiencing a rare fever, was confined to bed. He’d been ill since the third, and his symptoms were improving, but he wanted to take no chances. With the two-year anniversary of Weathertop only two days away, Frodo was frustrated that he had taken ill at this time; he had no wish to deal with an extra illness on top of everything else that came with October 6.

    Sam made some soup, which tasted delicious as expected, but Frodo only had enough appetite to eat about half of the soup that Sam gave him. All the same, it was much more than what he had eaten when he first fell ill. Both were relieved to know that Frodo had regained some of his appetite, and Sam was especially relieved because he’d been worried about Frodo’s weight ever since he’d woken up in Rivendell.

    Indeed, almost everything about Frodo worried Sam these days. Even when he wasn’t ill, Frodo still looked sick. He seldom smiled and never laughed. He generally avoided other hobbits, and there was no life in his voice. And he seldom seemed completely present; that worried Sam most of all.

    But Sam didn’t talk about any of that, knowing that Frodo didn’t like to talk about such things. He made sure that Frodo was warm and had what he needed, and then he went outside to tend the garden.

    Frodo felt much better the next day and decided to write since he had neglected the Red Book as of late. As he wrote about the Dead Marshes, he remembered that the Ring first became truly burdensome when he was in that very place. He jotted a quick paragraph about that experience, just as he had drafted.

    Shortly after he completed the paragraph, his hand trembled. The tremors nearly knocked over the jar of ink as he put the quill back. His shoulder burned, as often happened when he was distressed. A desire to put on the Ring took hold of his mind, and he grew more and more agitated as the desire dominated his every thought.

    Quickly he fumbled for the gem that Arwen gave him, and relief flooded him as the desire left, although the struggle left him weary. “It is gone,” he reminded himself out loud. “He will torment you no more.”

    But he knew his words would do no good. They never had. He reminded himself that there was no object for him to covet every time the desire took hold, but logic never left a long-term effect on his mind.

    Why did it have to be this way? Was it not enough for Sauron to torment him in life? Must Sauron continue to torment him in death, if Sauron was indeed dead?

    Frodo abandoned the book, for he knew that his mind was in no state to think about the past. Maybe writing would lessen the anguish in his mind tomorrow.

    He didn’t know that Sam had witnessed that most recent incident. Sam wanted to badly to speak up. He wanted to help Frodo leave that state, and he wanted to be absolutely certain that he was all right. But he also knew how miserable Frodo would feel if he knew that Sam had watched. Frodo always insisted that he was a burden, no matter how often Sam tried to tell him otherwise. Sam knew (or at least thought he knew) what was wrong, and every day he grew more aware that he could do nothing to make things right.

    That night Frodo tried to clear his mind completely before falling asleep, but he had nightmares all the same, and as usual he could not recall what he dreamt upon waking. The expected pain lay heavy on him as he awoke, and getting out of bed required more strength than he’d anticipated.

    Each step seemed to take an eternity as he walked to his study, and his legs gave out just after he sat down. After recovering, he started a fire, realizing as he did so that he saw the fire on Weathertop instead of the study’s chimney. He wondered whether he should extinguish the fire but decided to keep it burning, for he especially needed extra warmth today.

    He opened the Red Book and managed to finish what he had drafted. He wanted to start a draft for the next part of the story, but he couldn’t focus enough to organize his thoughts. This left him discouraged because his one hope of distraction was now extinguished. He knew that he should eat something, but he had neither the strength nor will to stand, so he stayed in the stool for the time being.

    Sometime later, the fire needed tending. Because the fire had done nothing to assuage the chill in his heart, Frodo decided to let the fire burn out, but while the fire was still burning, he thought that he might as well brew a medicinal tea that his mother (and later Bilbo) used to brew when he was under the weather.

    To his surprise, the tea seemed to have some minor effects, and he felt a little better well into the afternoon. He used that time to continue his Red Book contribution, but he didn’t write as much as he’d wanted. The sun was about to set, and the tea no longer helped.

    A melancholy trance possessed him as the sky darkened. Although he was aware of when and where he was, he had no physical sensation of the present. When he looked out the window of his study, he saw the emptiness that encompassed Weathertop, and he saw a cloudy sky instead of the Shire’s clear sky. He felt trapped, and worry engulfed him even though he knew he no longer had anything to fear. The ache in his wound sharpened until it felt like a stabbing pain instead of an ache, and the darkness from the outside crept into the room, forming black vapors like a poisonous gas.

    Vaguely he heard someone ask what was wrong. “I am wounded,” Frodo answered, neither knowing nor seeing who had asked him, “wounded; it will never really heal.”

 

_Take heart, my friend; we love you._

    “How are you, Frodo, truly?” Merry asked as he put the drinks on the table.

    Frodo almost laughed at Merry’s question. How was he indeed? How could he properly articulate that many days were bearable and many more were utter misery? And how could he say that he wished he’d died in Mordor?

    “I am not well, Merry,” he said honestly. “I set out on the Quest not expecting to return at all, but here I am, returned alive and dead at once.”

    “How could this have happened? And why must it have happened to you? You were one of my dearest friends, Frodo. You still are. I remember a hobbit who laughed so easily, a hobbit who didn’t have a care in the world and went out of his way to make someone feel important.”

    “And I remember a hobbit who followed me more loyally than my own shadow. I remember a hobbit who got himself into and out of trouble in the blink of an eye. And you couldn’t bear to see anyone sad. You’d do what it took to cheer up a fellow, and I must say you did a tremendous job. I never thought you’d become a mother hen who frets over everyone.”

    “And I never thought that you’d go out and save the world. I expected that you would have an adventure of your own, but not the kind that you had.”

    “You helped a great deal, Merry. So did Pippin. Because of you, I was able to leave the Shire. I could not have started the Quest without your help.”

    Merry was humbled, but at the same time he was sad (and a little frustrated) that Frodo refused any credit given to him. A little humility never hurt, of course, but Frodo was being far too modest. Why did he so stubbornly glorify others at his own expense? “Frodo,” he said gently, “it is perfectly acceptable to accept some credit. The Quest’s success relied upon the Ring-bearer’s will, and you provided more than your share.”

    Frodo shook his head. “I succumbed. I failed. If not for Gollum, I would have single-handedly doomed Middle-earth.”

    “But Gollum was there. Why worry about the worst when the best happened?”

    Frodo did not answer. Time and time again he had tried to give himself reassuring words, but he never persuaded himself. His loathing for his greed and his sudden hunger for power overcame any semblance of “I succumbed at the place where the Ring’s power was the strongest,” and his constant dwelling on what-if – a habit of his ever since his parents died – overcame “but those events cannot be changed.” If he could not convince himself, then no one could.

    They walked back to Frodo’s house together. A few hobbits stared along the way. Frodo, having grown accustomed to such behavior, paid them no heed, but it made Merry uncomfortable. He was certain that they were staring at Frodo more than at him, and that made him all the more agitated. He thought about meeting their stares. He thought about silently daring them to keep staring, but he knew there was no point.

    Before they parted ways, Merry said, “Frodo, if I can do anything at all, do not hesitate to ask. I promise you that you won’t be a burden.”

    Frodo thanked him without airing his doubts.

 

_I’m leaving here. I’m long away. For all the stars in heaven, I would not live – I could not live this way._

    Sam, no doubt, was the first one to pick up that something was wrong. He saw Frodo more than Merry and Pippin did, and no one knew Frodo better.

    Frodo didn’t have the heart to tell any of his friends, especially Sam. His decision to leave was already difficult to make, and he knew that his thoughts were selfish, but he was certain that they would attempt to convince him to stay if he told them of his plan.

    Having written everything that he had the will to write, his mood had worsened gradually over the past few months. He felt increasingly bitter towards the hobbits who enjoyed their simple lives without considering anything else, and he felt increasingly mad at himself for failing to re-adjust.

    Doubt still gnawed at him, even with his decision made. Was leaving truly the best thing? He had no guarantee of being healed. Bilbo would die when his time came, and then Frodo would have no one left. Was it better to leave and risk losing everything due to a chance of finding peace, or was it better to stay behind and die before his time in the company of those whom he loved?

    But why use his suffering to make them suffer? They deserved better.

    August came, and Frodo knew that his remaining time was short. He desperately wanted to tell Sam in the hopes that his final few weeks might be more special, but he fell tongue-tied and silent every time the thought crossed his mind.

    Sam soon asked him what was wrong. He had noticed Frodo’s increased periods of silence and how sad he looked whenever he looked at Sam. He began to worry that his master was dying, but he didn’t want to ask Frodo outright.

    When asked, Frodo merely answered, “It’s nothing.” But there was no concealing the thickness in his voice, and there was no blinking away the tears in his eyes.

    Frodo’s answer bothered Sam, but he decided to let Frodo be. He figured that if it was something truly terrible, then Frodo would tell him.

    After Sam went outside to tend the garden, Frodo sat at the edge of his bed, weeping quietly. For the first time, he fully felt the impact of his leaving. This was his home. He dreamed of home nearly every night of his journey, and his desire to save his home was the only motivation for him to move one foot in front of the other while he and Sam were in Mordor. His home was all he had when the Quest was finished, and now that he was leaving, he had truly lost everything.

    Not knowing whether he would give it to Sam, Frodo went to his study and penned a letter. In the letter, he wrote that he was leaving and his reasons for leaving, stressing time and time again that Sam mustn’t blame himself. He wrote that home wasn’t home anymore when they returned. He wrote that he hoped and tried tirelessly to make home feel like home, but he never succeeded. He wrote that the wounds to his body and mind plagued him every day, and he feared that they would drive him to madness and death. And he wrote that a happy town and happy townspeople meant nothing if he could not share their happiness.

    He tore up the letter as soon as he was finished, ashamed of his cowardice. If he was going to tell Sam—and he would have to sooner or later—he would tell Sam in person.

    But still his body betrayed him. His mouth refused to release the words that he wanted to say, and when he attempted to force himself to talk, air was the only thing that left his mouth.

    Soon, all too soon, it was mid-September. Frodo still hadn’t told anyone, but he knew when he would tell Sam, and he knew what his words would be. He would tell Sam as he prepared to leave the Shire for the last time. He would explain that he had sacrificed the life he once had so that others may enjoy that exact life. At that point it would be too late for anyone to persuade him to stay, but they would still enjoy a few final days together.

    On September the twenty-first, Frodo and Sam set out together for one final ride. And along the way Frodo told Sam the truth. To his surprise, Sam didn’t try to convince him to stay, although he’d hoped that Frodo would be able to enjoy the Shire once they’d returned. To his further surprise, Frodo felt much more peaceful having told Sam.

    Although Merry and Pippin did not accompany them, Frodo strongly suspected that someone had told them and that he would meet them at the harbor. With that in mind, he rode forth, feeling for the first time that he had truly done the right thing.


End file.
